Ex Gov. McGreevey starts new job as director of Jersey City jobs commission

Former Gov. Jim McGreevey, who resigned in disgrace nearly a decade ago after revealing that he is gay and that he had hired his secret lover as a homeland security advisor for which he was not qualified, has been hired as the director of a Jersey City jobs commission. He starts today.

McGreevey, 55, will make $110,000 annually as executive director of the Jersey City Employment & Training Program, a group that administers the city’s employment program. McGreevey will also help implement a prisoner re-entry program that Mayor Steve Fulop hopes will become a national model.

Bob Knapp, former JCETP chair, predicted a fight when Fulop first announced that he planned to put McGreevey in charge of the jobs program. But Knapp, who last week became the board’s vice chair, ended up voting in favor of the appointment Thursday.

The prisoner re-entry program, which has been slated to open at the Hub shopping center on Martin Luther King Drive over the objections of community leaders there, should be up and running by January, McGreevey said.